Some of the comments on this thread beggar belief. To suggest that the Home Secretary doesn't know what's going on is wholly inappropriate, as is the notion that this is a story that has been exaggerated and given undue media attention.
If you read beyond the headlines you get things like this... UK Home Secretary Theresa May said, "The target
may
have been an aircraft and,
had it
detonated, the aircraft
could have
been brought down". It sounds like she doesn't know.
Actually, David, if you read the statement and observe the correct usage of grammar and punctuation, it's a valid comment made by the Home Secretary; given the suspicion yesterday that a UPS truck was carrying a parcel with a similar device, it is possible that the plane was NOT the target. In fact, given that the parcels were addressed to synagogues in the Chicago area and were sent presumably by Al-Qaeda, it is logical to doubt that the target was a plane. Equally, had the bomb detonated whilst in the air, it is possible that it MAY NOT have caused the plane to explode/crash. At this time, when so little is known for certain, it is reasonable that governments have not rushed to comment or speculate.
I don't think she does! Yesterday they were saying the package found at East Midlands was not explosive, but 'suspicious in nature'.
President Obama was the first person to confirm that it was actually an explosive, with a detonator.
Who is 'they'? The Home Secretary did NOT say that the package at East Midlands airport was not explosive, nor did the Home Office or the Government. That statement in fact came from Leicestershire Police; given that they had a) evacuated the depot and investigated the parcel at 3.30am and declared it safe, and b) had evacuated the depot again in the afternoon and declared it safe, I'd take any comment by Leicestershire Police on the matter with a dose of salt.
For the record, President Obama was not the first to confirm that it was an explosive; Fox News, MSNBC and CBS News had sources from the US government on the record (though unnamed) as confirming the existence of explosive material 90 minutes beforehand.
I've never seen such an excessively overblown story in my life.
The highlight of the BBC's coverage was an 'expert' describing East Midlands Airport as a "provincial airfield".
I want to say how distasteful I find your comment about the story being 'overblown', especially given the possibilities of the story. I can't, however, as I struggled earlier in this post to say that the story had not been 'blown out' of all proportion. In all honesty, though, the story is not overblown. This is a story that was sat upon by the broadcasters throughout Friday; the BBC, ABC, CBS and CNN were aware of the security scare at the UPS depot but did not report it out of good faith and concern for safety. When it was reported, along with other events, it was done so in a measured way and an abundance of caution. The implications of this development are outstanding: if Al-Qaeda could target cargo planes owned and operated by UPS and FedEx for a 24-hour period it would bring about significant disruption to trade patterns and flows around the world and cause problems on the bourses and markets for 48 hours at minimum. The economic impact would be far greater than any bomb being detonated. It also raises another issue; given that some companies and carriers pay for space on commercial airlines, it would have posed an even greater risk had the device been on a shuttle service from London to Paris or London to New York. Of course, this is on the basis that the target was an aircraft. The targets may have been the synagogues in Chicago, at which point the story would have been equally as important for its geopolitical and religious element.
